Melodic Minor Scales Piano How To Construct Minor#

Even more advanced piano students can get into the lesser-known scales : chromatic scales, piano blues scales, pentatonic scales and whole tone scales.MINOR SCALES: There are 3 forms of minor scales: natural, harmonic and melodic. This guide will teach you everything you need to know.The descending form of a melodic minor scale involves lowering the sixth and seventh scale degrees a half step to their original pitches (i.e., it is the same as the natural minor scale). Let’s have a look at a couple of examples: A Melodic Minor ScaleThe natural minor is also often called the Aolean mode, dating back to when modal music was the main way of writing.When learning to play the piano, it s important to understand all three types of C Minor scale. So, your melodic minor pattern will be: Tone Semitone Tone Tone Tone Tone Semitone. On the way up you need to raise each of the 6th and the 7th notes by a semitone (half tone). The melodic minor descending scale is the same as the natural minor scale.

This is also why classical theory says you should sharpen the 7th of a minor scale on the way up, and keep it natural on the way down.There's an inherent problem with only sharpening the 7th of a natural minor sometimes, and that is that the listeners ear will easily pick out that you're changing the 7th note sometimes, and I imagine that it was just easier sometimes to sharpen the 7th every time. This was a HARMONIC choice on the part of the composers. So to create a leading tone composers simply sharpened the 7th going up a natural minor scale. However in A minor there is no leading tone because the 7th is a semitone flatter. In the a natural minor scale however the Tone between G and A is a much smoother resolution.The 7th note in C major is said to be a leading tone because it leads onto the next C. One thing about the natural minor scale is that it often has a smoother sound than the major scale, especially when going from the 7th to the octave(B-C in CMaj, G-A in AMin)The B to C in C major resolves to the root better because it is shifting a semitone and the ear picks that up as a better resolution.

Melodic Minor Scales Piano How To Construct Minor

And from there, you get the first answer as to where the other half step is in the natural minor scale. So the third is always lowered in comparison to the major scale.The 'model' or 'first example' for the minor natural scale is A minor, and it's easy to remember if you know the piano keyboard - no black keys. This was believed to create a more MELODIC shape.Hopefully that will help explain the history and how to construct minor scales.As for learning the note patterns I think a good way is to know the Tone/semitone patterns and work out from your root note that way.All minor scales have a half step between the 2nd and the 3rd of that scale/key - that is the pattern and what you feel/hear as 'minor' when you play a 3 note simple chord with the root/third/fifth. This meant that the scale still had a minor quality, and didn't have the imbalance of 3 different types of interval in the scale. In natural minor you only have 2 types of interval - tone and semitone, but in harmonic minor you have 3 types = semitone, tone and tone+semitoneIn order to try and add more balance to the scale while still keeping the leading note composers started also sharpening the 6th as well as the 7th. Remember that at this time composers weren't used to all the intervals and sounds that we are.

When we use interval patterns to construct scales, the easiest unit to measure the distance between notes is by counting the number of half-steps.With that in mind, the three minor scales - Natural Minor (Aeolian), Melodic Minor & Harmonic Minor - can be viewed as an interval pattern like so:In this example I used A Minor as our reference because in its natural form it has no sharps or flats. If you're not aware, our Western system of harmony consists of a chromatic scale with 12 tones:C - Db(C#) - D - Eb(D#) - E - F - F#(Gb) - G - Ab(G#) - A - Bb(A#) - BThe distance between these consecutive tones is known as a half step (for example, the distance from C to Db). Other music genres don't use this system as much (or not at all!) - they use the mode system or something else entirely.Natural: C D E♭ F G A♭ B♭ C (same but backwards on the way down)Melodic: C D E♭ F G A B C > C B♭ A♭ G F E♭ D CHarmonic: C D E♭ F G A♭ B C (same but backwards on the way down)Natural: A B C D E F G A (same but backwards on the way down)Melodic: A B C D E F♯ G♯ A > A G F E D C B AHarmonic: A B C D E F G♯ A (same but backwards on the way down)All scales in the diatonic/chromatic are constructed from a pattern of intervals. Half steps are between: 2nd/3rd, 5th/6th and 7th/8th - which causes the typical one and half step between 6th and 7th notes on the scale/key.Note: This way of identifying minor scales is most common in classical music. Minor harmonic is also called 'arabic' scale, and therefore easy to remember.

You can start on any note, and so long as you apply this interval pattern, you will have assembled this scale.RULES OF THUMB FOR IDENTIFYING THE SCALESYou may find that using the interval patterns is not the simplest way for you to remember the scales themselves. That is the interval pattern needed to construct that scale:These patterns remain consistent regardless of key. If you look below the staff, you'll see a number between each note.

One sure way to identify this scale is to listen for the leap between the 6th and 7th tones. Therefore, one simple way to figure out a natural minor scale from a major scale is to count 3 half-steps down from its starting note, or simply find the 6th note and play the major scale from there as shown in the picture.Harmonic Minor - Harmonic Minor is the only minor scale with an interval larger than 1 whole step (two half-steps). Example:You will notice that the note it starts on is 3 half-steps down from the scale's starting point (distance between A and C). If you take any major scale, start on its 6th degree and play it up to the next 6th degree, you will have played a natural minor scale.

If you're in the key of C Major, for example, and you lower the 3rd degree of the scale (the E => Eb), you will be in C Melodic Minor - the parallel melodic minor scale of C Major.A NOTE ABOUT THE EXISTING DISCREPANCY ON THE DESCENT OF MELODIC & HARMONIC MINOR SCALESIn reference to melodic & harmonic minor scales, there are two commonly accepted 'spellings' for the scales. Melodic Minor is simply a Major Scale with a lowered 3rd. Give the scale a listen and notice that discrepancy that sets it apart from the others.Melodic Minor - This one is arguably the simplest. This is worth noting, as harmonic minor and its modes have several names & purposes in other cultures - especially Klezmer, the music of Eastern Europe, & India to name a few.

In an audition situation, if asked to play these scales, make sure you clarify the preferred method of performance - Traditional (resolve on descent) or Modern/Jazz (same tones on descent).I know it's too late and a lot of people have already answered in detail. In essence, there are two separate and unique ways to perform each of these scales. The diagram below highlights these two concepts visually:In this day and age, it is important to be aware that this discrepancy exists and be comfortable with performing them either way. The modern tradition, as is popular among jazz artists and some contemporary composers, is to play the same tones ascending and descending.

So what you do is, take A major scale and then simply flatten the 3rd degree (C# becomes C)for ascending melodic scale and flatten the 6th and 7th degrees as well (F# becomes F and G# becomes G) for the descending melodic scale.